After hours of researching different types of smokers in different price ranges, I went with the Weber Smokey Mountain 18.5" (retails at $299 on amazon, but if you look on Ebay, there are some power sellers who sell brand new, factory sealed ones for ~$250 with free shipping, no sales tax). Just did my first ever run and the previous posts about WSMs pretty much sums it up. Went with the minion method, and maybe within the first 45 minutes of kind of fidgeting with and adjusting the vents, it held a very stable temperature for a long time (only needed 6 hours for my cook) and was very easy to use.